Surname Saturday 2.0: The Ronesses

The Roness Family

 

I have very little information on this branch of my Norwegian family. My connection to this line comes from my grandfather's great-grandmother, Henrikke Roness. Henrikke was the second wife of Johan Petter Bordewich, and had four children with him, three after their marriage, and one before. I know little about her life, or how she ended up with Johan, as she is the age of one of his children, not to mention the above mentioned child out of wedlock.

Her firstborn was Johan's second child out of wedlock. He lost his wife when he was in his forties, already had ten living children, several of which were approaching adulthood. When he became involved with one of the family's help and got her pregnant, he considered marrying her, but his children insisted he send both the woman and her child away. Johan did, though he provided for his child throughout her childhood. He later became involved with Henrikke, and in 1858, she gave birth to their first child. Again, Johan's children blocked his attempt to marry, but this time he refused to send Henrikke and her child away. The couple married two years later, despite his children's' objections, and my great-great grandmother Leonharde Marine was born two years later. She was named for Johan's first wife.

The family has many fascinating stories about Johan, but I find myself wondering about this woman, who was not only willing to have a child out of wedlock in a family where many of the members obviously did not appreciate her presence, but ended up marrying a man twenty years her senior and proceeded to have three more children with him. Granted, such disparate ages weren't entirely uncommon in the "old world," but by this time they were becoming less and less common, but I still think it makes her an interesting person to look at.

Unfortunately, I don't know anything for certain about her family, aside from one record and what I have found online in others' trees, which unfortunately tells me little. I only have one generation before hers in my tree, though I think I have found trees that go much further back. For now, I have ended with what little I have found in the records, (her wedding record, birth record, and her parents' wedding record) but I always keep looking when I am working on this branch of the tree.

My Roness line for those interested:

* Henrik Hansen, born 1793, married Susanne Pedersdatter in 1819 in Norway. I only have Henrikke listed for them, though I am uncertain where the Roness comes in. One of my Scandinavian friends mentioned that the spelling is unusual, and I did at one point find another spelling, Ronæs, which he said sounds much more plausible. I do not know when Henrik died.

* Henrikke was born Pauline Henrikke Roness in 1828 in Trondheim, Norway. She married Johan Bordewich 1860 in Nordland, Norway. They had four children together: Ida Amalie, Leonhard Marine, Anna Magdalena, and Petter Roness. She outlived Johan and died in 1892 in Nordland, Norway.

+ Ida was born 1858 in Nordland, Norway. She married Peder Martin Olsen 1881 in Nordland. They had six children: Johan Peter, Johan Henry Sofus, Margit Elise Roness, Astrid Susanne Groth, Halfrid, and Hans Henrik Bordewich. I have two more generations after her children, but no information beyond that. She died in 1930.

+ Leonharde was born 1861 in Nordland, Norway. She married her cousin Henrik Bergithon Bordewich (later Bordewick) in 1887. They had three sons: Bjarne, Harald, and Hans Henrik. For more about their family, consult the Bordewick surname post. Leonharde died in 1944, shortly after meeting her first great-grandchild.

+ Anna was born 1862. She married Aksel Magnus Kjelsberg (later Kelsberg) in 1890. They had five children: Astrid, Gudrun, Peter Bordewick, Sverre Hegge (called Al), and Harald Bordewich. I have two more generations after her children, but no information beyond that. She died in 1949.

+ Peter was born 1867. He married Margaret Taylor Priebke in 1891 in Scotland. They had seven children: Frederick Johan, Anne Cormack, Peter Magnus Roness, Eric, Cedric Theodore, John Stuart, and one boy that didn't last past infancy. I have information on two generations after his children, but no information beyond that. He died in 1956 in London, England.

+ Leonharde and Anna both ended up in Canada, and Peter lived in the UK for his entire adult life. Only Ida remained in Norway with her family.

What I don't know:

* I would like to know where the Roness comes from, and to firm up the information about Henrikke's parents.

* I'd also love to learn if she had any siblings.

* I'd also love any information about Henrikke and Johan's children aside from Leonharde's family. I've made some contact with the Kelsburgs, but I don't know much about the other two branches. We've lost touch, given the fact that they are in Europe, and we in America. So any contact with anyone from those branches would be great.

More on this line:

* Original Roness Surname post

* Brick walls – A Different Listing

* Where We're from – Norway

Brick Wall People – Part 1 – Leon Seneft

Name: Leon Seneft

Birth: before 1868, likely in Germany or Galicia

Death: between 1919 and 1922, probably in London, England

Marriage: before 1883, probably in Galicia

Location(s): Galicia; London, England

Relation to me: Leon Seneft is my paternal grandfather's paternal grandfather, which makes him 5^th generation before me.

Alias(es): Surname may have also been spelled Senft.

As for Leon, it seems quite unusual for a Jew, so I am uncertain if he had another Hebrew name.

Seneft also seems unusual for a Jewish family, though I know that at some point, German Jews were forced to take German names, so the name, which is distinctly German (it means "mustard seller") may come from this period, which would have been Leon's father or grandfather's time, I believe. Which also means that he may have another, more Jewish surname. I believe they used a Patrnonymic system, but I do not know enough about it or about his family at the time to guess what that other surname may have been.

Parents: unknown

Spouse(s): Mindel(aka Minnie) Hilinger

Children: Alex, Jennie, Annie, Jack, ?

Other Family: No other direct family known.

Details: Leon Seneft was a Rabbi when the family was living in London, and possibly before. I believe he and his wife had at least five children before leaving Galicia and taking their family to settle in London. I have an address that puts him living in London's south-east side, south of the Thames, though I am uncertain how long he lived there. He and his family lived there until the war, when Alex was sent to Camp Douglas, and many of his children left the country, which saw them as enemies at the time because they were German. Leon and at least one of his sons (the unnamed one) stayed in England after the war, and one of his daughters did return as well after her husband died, but the others left England and never returned.

Proof:

1)      Leon has always been part of my family tree that was given to me by my grandfather. Though he never met the man, he knew of him, and had a few pictures of him while growing up.

2)      My second piece of proof on Leon came from a letter my grandfather wrote to someone of the name Hillinger in Belgium, who was hoping our lines might be somehow connected. It only briefly mentions him, but reinforces the information I have from the family tree I got from him. In it, he mentions that he never met the man, as Leon died before he was born, which was in 1922, giving me the outside edge of his possible death date.

3)      The next is the Hillinger family book. With my grandmother's death, I received the Hillinger Family book my grandfather got from Germany to confirm his birth date for the US government, which contained information on all of his family, including both Alex and Dora's parents. Again, he is not one of the entries in the book, but it refers to him tangentially as Alex's father, though the information is minimal as the German government did not recognize his marriage to Mindel because it was a Jewish ceremony.

4)      We also have a copy of Alex and Dora's wedding invitation from the Hillinger family book, which does mention Leon, and makes it clear that he was still alive in 1919 when they married in Frankfurt. Because he's listed on the invitation, I assume he was also in attendance at the wedding, though that is only speculation at this time.

5)      The last piece of information I have on Alex is an Ellis Island record for Jennie Seneft, one of his daughters. It lists him as her next of kin back in England, and gives his address at the time.

Needed:

I have no BMD information for Leon at all. I imagine if those records exist, they're likely in Hebrew, if they weren't destroyed during the war. I also don't know when he emigrated to England from Galicia, though I imagine those records must be somewhere, in England if nowhere else. I don't know if he was ever naturalized in England (was that even possible at the time?), but if he was, that may be a good place to look.

Complicating things is the information on his name above. I need to determine if he only ever went by Leon Seneft, or if he might have had other names he used while young or while in Galicia.

I know he was a Rabbi from family stories, but have absolutely no idea where even to start looking for that kind of record, particularly something that might tell me when and where he was trained, and if he was a Rabbi his whole life, or if he did something else for a living as well. I also don't know what synagogue he might have worked at (is that even the right phrasing?) or if there were more than one.

I do know that his wife died many years before him, as I believe I have found her gravestone, though it lists only her name and her daughter's, so I am not 100% sure. It does lead me to wonder why his name is not on the stone, and where he might be buried as well.

The last piece of information I am currently missing is about Camp Douglas. I know that Alex was sent there, but I am uncertain if he was the only one, if perhaps one or both of his brothers were sent with him, or if Leon or even the whole family were sent as well. I believe there was some sort of arrangement where so long as one member of the family went, the others could stay where they were, but it is possible that meant all the male members of the family had to go. I will need to write to the Red Cross to get this information. Hopefully they will have a bit more than just names for me when I do.

And that is all I have on Leon Seneft. Again, if you've any information on this man not listed here, or if you can answer one of the questions I've listed, please contact me. I'd love to get further on this branch of the family.

Surname Saturday 2.0: The Angells

Surname Saturday 2.0: The Angells

The Angell Family

 

The Angell family is on the Norwegian side of my family tree. I really know very little about it aside from what I have learned from others, though the stories are beginning to build. I do have two about Kaja aka Karen Angell, who married into the Bordewich family. Kaja was my great-grandfather's paternal grandmother, and aside from her marriage to Hans Henrik, I have one interesting fact about her, and one story that has been passed down about her.

Though I do not yet have the facts straight, the book I got from the American Bordewich branch of this tree mentions that she was adopted. I am not sure if Angell was her birth name, or if that was her adopted name. But it is possible it was both. During the period she was born, it was still likely that a child would be most likely to be adopted by relations than strangers, so it is possible that she may have been adopted by an aunt or uncle. But as of yet, I have no experience with adoptions, especially such old adoptions, so that will come later.

The story I have read about Kaja goes like this: Johan Bordewich, her father-in-law, had lost his wife to childbirth thirteen years before, and his daughters had taken up the control of the household in her absence, each in turn as the girls were married off. At the time Kaja married Hans Henrik, Hans's sister Elsie was in charge of the household, and as such, she sat at her father's side at the supper table. When Kaja joined the household, Johan insisted that she take Elsie's place at the table. For the first few meals, Kaja did so, but finally she insisted that Elsie take the place once more, as Kaja felt it was her due. Upon seeing Kaja in a different spot at the table, Johan insisted she return to the spot beside him, but she refused, telling him she was just fine where she was. Johan was not used to being told no, but after a bit more insistence on Kaja's part, he gave in. Though he was not pleased to be told no, he was impressed by his daughter-in-law's ability to stand up to him.

Before Kaja, I have a few more generations, but I know absolutely nothing about them aside from the names and dates I have gotten from others. I hope to learn more as time goes on, as I have learned about Kaja, but only time will tell if that will happen. All I can do is keep researching.

My Angell line for those interested:

* Hans Rasmussen Angel was born sometime before 1740. He married Ingeborg Michelsdatter Hvid. I currently have only one child listed for them. I have no mention of when he died.

* Rasmus Angel was born 1755 in Nordland, Norway. He married Dorthea Hansdatter Ellingsen sometime before 1784, and they had at least one child. He died 1791 in Nordland at the age of 36.

* Hans Angel Gronoen was born in 1784 in Nordland, Norway. He married Rechardina Hendricha Klaeboe sometime before 1834. They had at least three children: Karen Dorothea (aka Kaja), Ida, and Margelie. He died in 1845.

+ Karen Dorothea Angell was born 1835 in Helgeland, Norway. She married Hans Henrik Bordewich 1859 in Nordland, Norway. The couple had nine children: Leonharde Marine, Henrik Bergthon, Eivind Sofus, Richard Angell, Johanna Petrine, Harold Carlos, Alfred, Karen Robertine, and Helga Hagerup. Karen died in 1922 in Oslo, Norway. For details on her family with Hans Henrik, see the Bordewick Surname post.

+ Margelie Angell was born about 1845 in Nordland, Norway. She married Mathias Hagerup about 1862 in Nordland, Norway. The couple had one child I have record of: Karen Dortea Hagerup. I have no other records of their descendants. Margelie died about 1862.

What I don't know:

* Who Kaja's natural parents were.

* I'd also love to know more about this branch in general. What Rasmus and Hans did for a living, how many other children there might be in these two branches, and more firm birth, marriage and death dates.

More on this line:

* Where We're From: Norway

* Surname Saturday: Angell

A New Way of Looking at Brick Walls

So I have several brick walls in my tree, some of which I have little chance of getting past any time soon, maybe ever. But I keep looking in hopes of finding something I haven't before, and keep attempting to look at them from different angles.

Then my computer died late last year, so my parents got me a new computer for my birthday, along with Office Suite 2010. Included in the package was a program I'd not used before, called OneNote. Up to now, I'd been using Office XP, so I'd not had it available. I looked online to see what it was all about, and was surprised at how well it fit my thought-processes. The sub-pages and in-line links and tags made the pages so much more graphically appealing than when using Word or Excel. It just seemed like it might be able to do things for me I wouldn't be able to do with the other two programs. Or at least, not quite as easily.

So I played around with it, both for my writing and for my genealogy. For genealogy, I set up a new file for each, and a general-purpose set of pages for my overall research, which included pages for my brick walls. I knew the first few people who were my brick walls so well, I was able to do much of the info off the top of my head. I included clippings of photos if I had them, and maps if I knew locations, and a list of the facts about the person. Then I realized I could include a list of where I'd gotten the facts from, and was astonished to see how many I had for some, and also how few (though that was less surprising) for others.

Because of all this, I decided it might be fun to write this all out in some sort of biographical format and include that list, and a list of the basic info sources I still need to find, just so it's out there and everyone can see.

So starting next week, I will post a piece on one brick wall person on Friday night. Please, if you know these people, or have them in your tree somewhere, or think you might have, or more importantly, if you think you have some information not included in these posts, do contact me. Either here in a comment or through my email address, which I believe is available on my other Blog. I'll be starting with those 5 generations before me, and working back to those 7 generations before me. Anything before that would be too difficult to trace at this time, and I'd like to focus on the ones I'm nearest related to.

Looking forward to this. I think it will be fun to write out. I certainly hope that it will be interesting to read.

Surname Saturday 2.0: The Schrøders

The Schrøder Family

 

Like the Rasmusens, this is a very new name on my family tree. One that I only discovered because of records on Family Search. My great-grandmother's mother was a dead-end for her line until I found her birth record, which listed Ole Larsen and Birthe Marie Schrøder as her parents. I've since learned quite a lot about Birthe.

Birthe was born in the early part of the 19^th century. I believe her parents' names were Henrich Schrøder and Anne Sorensdatter. I have several records on her. The first is her birth certificate, which lists her birthdate as 1819. I have found two records listing a Birthe Marie Schrøder, but I believe this one fits closer to the other records I have found. The other record lists her birthdate as 1825, which when I compare it to her wedding records seems a bit too young, so I've chosen to assume the 1819 Birthe is the Birthe I am looking for.

She married twice. First to a Niels Olsen in 1844, which would make her twenty-five at the time, then again to Sofie's father, Ole Larsen in 1851. Neils and Birthe had at least two daughters who I found records of at Family Search as well: Christine Marie, born in 1845, and Anne Kirstine, born in 1847. According to the records I have found, Neils died sometime before 1851, as that was when Birthe remarried.

Unfortunately, this marriage was not to last either. About this time, there was a great wave of Scandinavians who headed to America. Ole Larsen was apparently among them. We are not entirely certain when he left, but their daughter was born in 1855, so it wouldn't have been much earlier than that. From the stories the family told, it seems it probably was not much later, either. When my great aunt went to meet her cousins in Denmark on this side of the family, she asked about her great-grandfather, and was told that he "left [Birthe] with a gift," and that was the last she heard from him. The implication being, of course, that he had left her with child, or with an infant, and never returned or sent on money to help. It was an unfortunately common occurrence at the time. Many men traveled to America with great dreams, promising to send for the wives they left behind, but never did so. Apparently Birthe was one of these. So she was left with three young daughters and little income.

I know little else about this branch, but this story fascinates me. It feels like something I read in a book, but this is something that touched my family only a few generations ago.

Of Birthe's family before her, I have little more than names. But I continue to look in hopes of finding more.

My Schrøder line, for those interested:

* Henrich Christian Schrøder was born 1790 in Slots-Bjergby, Denmark. He married Anne Sorensdatter 1817, and they had at least three children, Birthe Marie, Niels Henrichsen, and Caroline Henrichsdatter. As you can see, they were named in the old way. I do not know when he died.

* Birthe Marie Schrøder was born probably about 1819 in Slots-Bjergby, Denmark, and married twice. First to Niels Olsen in 1844, with whom she had two daughters, then to Ole Larsen in 1851, with whom she had one daughter. I do not know when she died.

* Birthe and Ole's daughter was Maren Sofie Olsen. She was born 1855 in Slots-Bjergby, Denmark. She married Rasmusm Hansen in 1881, and the two had six children together. Their descendants are listed with his family's surname post, so I will not name them here. Maren died in 1923, survived by two sons and two daughters.

What I don't know:

* I would love to know more about Birthe Marie's life, and her daughter Maren Sofie's. I have heard that she was sent out to earn her keep helping other farms, but at this moment, I'm not sure if there would even be a record of such things. I have attempted to find her in the Danish Censuses of her life, but before her marriage to Rasmus, it is difficult to determine if I am finding the correct Maren in the records.

* I would also love to know if Birthe Marie had any other siblings, and what her father's parents names were, as I have been unable to locate any further records on this family.

More on this line:

* Brick Wall Update

* Surname Saturday Post: Schrøder